What’s In The Box? It’s TheIndieBox, Dyscourse edition!

A while back, I became aware of a subscription box service I never knew I needed. That subscription box is none other than TheIndieBox.
To put it shortly, it’s a company that gives new indie games an old school deluxe edition treatment. There is a limited quantity made of each month’s IndieBox, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. There are usually some still available for sale from previous months- which is how I snagged a copy of the Steamworld Dig box, even though I didn’t subscribe to TheIndieBox when that came out.

Dyscourse puts you in the shoes of Rita, one of the survivors of a plane crash. The game is a text-based interactive adventure game with a really neat aesthetic. In fact, it was the aesthetic of this game that first convinced me to try out TheIndieBox. Dyscourse was Kickstarted and came out on Steam on March 25, 2015 and is developed by Owlchemy Labs.

The game has a lot of replayability. The object of the game is to survive (and escape) the island with as many of your fellow survivors as possible. Everything you do, every choice you make, and every piece of conversation you choose, has an effect on the outcome of the game.

What’s in the box, then? This is:

The actual box for Dyscourse

The box itself is nice, but I was a little disappointed to see that it is less vibrant in its colors in real life than it is on the website.

Now then, let’s take a look at all of the stuff:

I didn’t have a ruler handy, but the soundtrack should give you some idea as to the scale of the box and other items in it.

In every IndieBox there are a few items that are always included:

An IndieBox Newsletter.

A custom manual for the game

A sticker for the game, and a sticker for the Indiebox – typically made in the same artstyle as the game

A business card USB in the art style of the game.

A Steam code for the game in question

Apart from those mainstays, we have a vinyl collectible, the soundtrack and a metal collectible in this IndieBox.

The front side of the soundtrack for Dyscourse

…And the back. This game has a neat soundtrack.

The game features a soundtrack of a whopping 74 different tracks. With all the different things that can happen in the game, it does need a lot of different sounds.

Meet Disky. Disky is a vinyl collectible (shown on top of the soundtrack for scale)

Disky is a frisbee (or is he?) that can be found in certain circumstances during gameplay. What you choose to do with Disky is up to you.

Dysast Air pin, worn by official Dysast Air personnel.

Apologies for the crappy quality. The pin is small, but hefty. You may think Dysast Air is a bit on the nose for a travel company that crashes its flight on the shores of an island in the middle of nowhere, but it’s quite fitting.

USB containing the DRM free version of the game. Made to look like a portable video game console that can be found during gameplay.

The USB card comes in a protective case – these are probably one of my favorite regular items in an IndieBox. The in-game version of this portable video game console can be an essential tool for surviving!

Stickers!

These are pretty nice. I have yet to decide where to put my IndieBox stickers. I’m thinking of taking the side of an old PC case to use for video game / nerdy stickers in general. It’d be a pity to use these somewhere that isn’t more or less permanent.

All sorts of neat info!

I really dig the manuals created for games featured by TheIndieBox. One of my favorite things as a kid was poring over the manual for Warcraft 2 – so it’s a nice trip down memory lane to be able to look into a manual filled with not only gameplay tips, but lore and messages from the creators of the game.

Overall, I was really pleased with this IndieBox. I love the game, both in writing and aesthetic, and despite the box not being as colorful as I’d hoped for, it still looks damn good.

As of the time of writing, this IndieBox is still available for purchase from the IndieBox website. There’s only a limited quantity of these boxes produced, though, so if you’re interested in the box, you might not want to wait too long with getting it.

6 months agoby NerdEssentialsExcelsior, true believers! I'm having a BLAST playing the Spider-Man game on PS4! The only problem is that photo mode; I keep goofing around, trying to get cool screenshots #spidermanps4#playstation#marvel